


A Pale Reflection

by Mossgreen



Series: 2770 ab urbe condita [43]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Master/Slave, Sexual Slavery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 05:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17554310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mossgreen/pseuds/Mossgreen
Summary: Mirrors don't always tell the whole truth. Ven finds reflections are only part of the story





	A Pale Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Follows on from Fool's Paradise and Hot and Bothered
> 
> (I hate trying to think up titles)

Ven had developed a new habit, without really thinking about it. These days, whenever he passed his reflection – it did not even need to be in a mirror – if he had even a second, he would pause to look at himself. It was not vanity that caused him to stop. Rather, it was a pause to look, to search for something that used to be there, or to see if there were something present that hadn't been there before. It was a moment to look, to reflect even, on who he had been and who he was now, what he was becoming.

He owned nothing that was reflected back at him. Not the tunic and sandals he stood up in. Not the body that he kept in trim because his master told him to (would he do so anyway, were he free? He had no idea). 

If he had the luxury to allow himself a longer look (maybe in the morning, completing his ablutions before his master woke), he would look at his own eyes and wonder who he was, really, and who he was becoming.

His reflection hadn't changed, particularly, since his master had first taken him to his bed. The tunic was new, a dark red very different from the undyed linen he'd worn before. It made his green eyes look greener, but that was an external thing. A mirror didn't really reflect the changes inside.

He liked the livery colour – but his clothing was his master's choice. His body was his master's property, which was why his master could do the things he did to Ven. Numerous masters, over the centuries, had tried to also claim that their slaves' minds belonged to them, too, but there had also been counter-arguments that whether someone's body was owned or not, their mind was their own – or at least, that was what Ven had been given to understand, and he knew he did not know all the ins and outs of those arguments. What he had picked up had been in passing, and he was well aware that some of what he had overheard had not been meant to _be_ overheard, but that was how much freeborn citizens were used to having slaves around.

Ven's mind was his own, though, and he paused when passing mirrors to see how much of _him_ could be discerned just by looking at him, only to shrug and carry on walking. No freeborn citizen ever really gave that much consideration to a slave or that slave's thoughts, after all. A slave was a blank slate, mindless unless the citizen wanted to hear his thoughts or opinions, and few citizens wanted to know those.

Except all that had been thrown into confusion recently, after the disastrous session with the single-tail. Ven couldn't think about it without growing hot with embarrassment; he had derailed a recording session and could remember nothing about it other than the crack of the whip and the spiralling terror. Master's temper had been on edge afterwards, he had been short with everyone in the house except for Ven himself. Everyone had crept around in dread lest Master snap at them, or worse. Ven was the only one Master hadn't snapped it, which was in complete contrast to normal. It had taken a week and Willow approaching Ven to ask if there was anything he could do to help things go back to normal.

Ven had reservations about things going back to normal. Normal meant discomfort (at least, if not outright pain) and humiliation on a regular basis, for him. But it wasn't fair on the others in the house. There was a level of fear that could almost be tasted and it wasn't right.

And so Ven had crept out of bed one night, pulling the blanket from his cot, and gone to the _lararium_ to seek a few hours' solitude, and his courage, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that his doing so would make Master pay attention.

It was not a step he, or anyone else in the household, would ever take lightly, and it had paid off, at least as far as the rest of the household was concerned. As far as Ven himself was concerned...

He couldn't help his steps slowing as he drew nearer to the playroom. The ginger thing last week had been... weird. Painfully hot while it had lasted but it hadn't actually lasted that long. But this was... He didn't want to do it, didn't want to go through whatever private Tartarus his master had concocted this week.

He paused. Icarus was doing something to one of the bushes, his back to Ven, which allowed Ven to watch him for a moment. He was pruning dead twigs off the bush, tossing them into a pile. 

"Bend, don't break," Ven muttered to himself and swallowed before turning back to the playroom. 

He stripped off his tunic, folding it neatly and setting it to one side before kneeling to wait for his master, trying not to examine his emotions too closely. It didn't help that right now he felt little other than resentment, though he couldn't quite work out who it was he resented. His fellow slaves for needing him to submit to this so they didn't have to, for being able to share things he couldn't any more. His master, for picking him in the first place and doing all this stuff to him. 

It was a mind-worm, that's what it was. He breathed. If he didn't let it go, kept thinking about it, he'd wear himself out and end up like one of those dry twigs Icarus was cutting off, broken and worn out and discarded before his time. He wouldn't be feeling like this if Master hadn't wanted to use the single-tail, and if he hadn't seen the effects of it when used in punishment. The two were inextricably linked in his mind and it had sent him reeling to think his master thought him that bad, hadn't even warned him, hadn't corrected his behaviour before it got so bad.

 _But he stopped_ , he reminded himself forcefully and tried to concentrate on his breathing before it could get panicked and erratic. He had got himself under control, mostly, and jumped as his master came into the room.

"Such a pretty sight, pet."

"Thank you, Master."

Master ran his hand through Ven's hair and Ven relaxed fractionally at the comforting gesture.

"You seem nervous, pet."

"Master?" He was, it couldn't be denied, but he didn't think he was so nervous that his master could see it.

"You were nervous last week, more so than usual, and you seem the same way today, in a way I don't think I've seen before."

Ven tried not to fidget or flinch under his master's cool, appraising gaze. He was, it couldn't be denied, but that didn't mean he wanted to admit it.

"What is it about the single-tail specifically that... distressed you?"

Ven swallowed and must have flinched or moved because the hand on his head began stroking rather than simply ruffling his hair. A finger tapped his head twice and he looked up, registering the thoughtful expression on Master's face before he lowered his eyes although still keeping his face upturned.

"Fetch the single-tail and the medium flogger, pet," Master told him, before turning to sit on the _lectica_ in the corner of the room.

Ven blinked before crossing to where all Master's various implements hung from their leather loops, each on its own hook.

"And a cane," Master added.

Ven had never been allowed to touch any of these, except when Master put a cane in his hand that time. No slave in the house was permitted to remove any implement from its place without a direct order, which Ven had received maybe twice in his entire time in this house, both times since his promotion to favourite. 

It was a moment before he could lift the flogger and cane down, and a struggle to bring himself to touch the heavy braided handle of the single-tail, which he handled as though it were a cobra poised to strike.

"Kneel there, and place them on the floor in front of you," Master directed as Ven stopped in front of him, awkwardly holding the implements out to him.

Ven did so, his confusion not diminishing in the least as Master tapped his thigh, indicating Ven should lean his head there.

"What do these have in common, pet?"

"They're all used in punishment, Master, designed to hurt."

"Which have I used in punishment?"

"The flogger, Master, and the cane."

"Not the single-tail?"

"No, Master."

"Which ones have I used in demonstrations?"

"The flogger, Master."

"Not the cane?"

Ven opened his mouth, paused and added, slowly, "Yes... but there was a punishment at the same time."

He looked up as his master laughed. "Very true. So, tell me about the single-tail, then."

Ven shivered and pressed a little closer to his master's leg. "That's for punishment. The others don't always draw blood – even the cane doesn't, always – but a whip does. And... and if you punish me, you always tell me why first, and... you never let it get that far, Master."

"Hmm."

That was... Ven risked a glance up to his master's face. Encouraging.

"A whip leaves scars, too, which a cane doesn't," he added.

Master looked down at him then. "You don't have any scars, from a whip or anything else. So tell me about your experience of a single-tail."

Ven hunched his shoulders. "It was... I was only young but... I don't remember what they said he'd done but they had him spread-eagled and... it was horrible. The sound of it... Everything about it." He scowled at the hateful thing on the floor in front of him. "I'll be happy if I never see one of those again, except that's impossible."

It was easier to ignore when passing a public punishment in the Forum, with its crowds of people milling about, and Ven having to focus on what he was doing and not lose track of where his master was, and surrounded by the noise of a thousand voices and feet on stone paving and bicycle bells and everything else. The sound of a whip-crack was practically inaudible in that sea of noise.

The hand in his hair fisted, pulling back and lifting Ven's face to his master's scrutiny.

"I may choose to hurt you, pet, but I don't choose to harm you."

That might be true for now, but Ven (like any sensible slave) could not risk believing it would always be true; masters could change their minds and habits at the roll of a dice, and it would be a foolish slave indeed who trusted their owner without reservation.

"You may put the cane and the whip away, pet."

He watched in the mirror as his master fastened his leather cuffs on and then clipped them to a chain from the ceiling, pulling his arms up over his head. It was not a painful stretch, but it made his body look leaner, pulled up. Behind him, Master shook the tails of the flogger out and Ven braced himself for the impact.

If he had changed, so had his master. He could take no credit for that, of course, but while Ven had learned to let go, to find his centre in the building pain of whatever Master chose to do, Master no longer held himself so rigidly, could show (however rarely) some sort of care or concern for his slaves. He couldn't take that for granted, of course, but he had seen it. As he could see, now, if he looked, some sort of pride in his master's face as he twisted under the flogger's ministrations, the dark edges of pleasure beginning to blur the building pain.


End file.
